Method and system for appliances remote control

ABSTRACT

Remote control system for electric or electronic appliances comprising at least one remote control that can be actuate by a user and at least one electronic apparatus installed on each of said appliances and intended to communicate by air with said remote control to actuate a status change of the appliance selected by the user, characterized in that said electric apparatus of each appliance comprises at least: —a transmitter ( 13 ) intended to transmit a message by air to the remote control; —a receiver ( 14 ) intended to receive and decode a message sent by air by the remote control; and—an identification address ( 16 ) that said electronic apparatus is capable of transmitting by the transmitter, and in that at least one remote control comprises: —a transmitter ( 17 ) intended to transmit a message by air to the electric or electronic appliances, —a receiver ( 18 ) intended to receive and decode a message sent by air by at least one of said appliances and having an aiming axis to be aimed towards an appliance to be controlled; and at least one key or similar device to allow the user to send an actuation command to a selected appliance, wherein the remote control receiver is provided with a directional receiving device to allow the reception only of the signals coming from sources located outside a cone with axis coinciding with the remote control aiming axis.

The present invention relates to remote controlled electric orelectronic appliances and in particular, it relates to a remote controland related receiving apparatus for such appliances. Moreover, anotherobject of the finding is a new remote control method.

PRIOR ART

At present, a user-controlled infrared source (remote control) and aninfrared receiver installed on the device to be controlled are used forthe remote control of electric or electronic appliances. The remotecontrol turns the infrared source on or off, coding the control sent bythe user, whereas the receiving circuit on board of the controlleddevice decodes the signal received and actuates it, if correct. If moredevices are to be controlled, it is necessary to have one remote controlfor each device or a single remote control with one or more keys foreach device. It is clear that as the number of appliances to becontrolled increases, both possibilities are not free from evidentdisadvantages. In the second case, moreover, the system consisting ofthe single remote control and of the devices associated to it is notfreely expandable, that is, if a new device is added, it is necessary toreplace or reprogram the remote control.

Some solutions have already been proposed to solve these problems. Forexample, documents EP 0 734 197 B1, U.S. Pat. No. 5,544,979, EP 0 503699 A1 disclose a remote control intended to send a beam aimed at theobject to be turned on or off with a narrow transmission angle. Suchsolution, however, exhibits the problem of having to provide a receiverhaving a very wide reception angle, in order to allow the use of thissystem from any angle. Moreover, no appliance addressing device isprovided in these documents (that is, the aimed object has no address ofits own), thereby affecting the system expansibility and integrability.

Another solution proposed (for example in document GB 2 259 172 A)provides for every object to be controlled to be provided with its ownaddress. The connection and the subsequent control of the object to bepiloted occurs by a method that scans all the addresses of allpotentially listening appliances. The detection of the object to becontrolled occurs, for example, thanks to a light indicator located onthe object itself. This solution exhibits the disadvantage of being slowin terms of time, and of operating only in environments wherein theremote control already knows the addresses to be scanned; in otherwords, the environment must be known.

Yet another solution (see for example EP 1 058 219 A1) uses the scanningmethod mentioned above to acquire the knowledge of the environment andthereby program the remote control. In this way it is possible to obtaina remote control capable of learning the address of the devices to whichit will send the commands. However, this solution requires programmingthe remote control every time the type and number of appliances to becontrolled are changed, in other words, when the user is in a newenvironment.

OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Object of the present invention is that of proposing a method and asystem for the remote control of electric or electronic appliances,which should allow controlling a plurality of such appliances by asingle remote control, the appliances being provided with a suitablereceiving apparatus, without the need of providing the remote controlwith keys and information corresponding to each appliance to becontrolled.

The advantages of such a system are evident. For example:

with a very small sized remote control it is possible to control anindefinite number of appliances;

when new appliances are added it is not necessary to replace or changethe remote control since this does not need any keys and informationrelated to the appliance;

an electric system based on such remote control system is easy to expandsince the addition of new appliances only requires the line voltagesegments to power the appliance itself, while no connections to switchesare required.

These and other objects and advantages of the inventions are achieved bya method and a system for the remote control of electric or electronicappliances conforming to the appended claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Further features of the finding will appear more clearly from thefollowing description, made with reference to the attached indicativeand non-limiting drawings. In such drawings:

FIG. 1 schematically shows the remote control system for electric orelectronic appliances in a first step of request of identification ofsuch appliances by the remote control;

FIG. 2 schematically shows the system in a second step of reception ofthe address of the appliances to be controlled by the remote control;

FIG. 3 schematically shows the system in a third step of request ofconfirmation of the connection by the remote control to the appliancesto be controlled;

FIG. 4 schematically shows the system in a fourth step of confirmationof the connection with the remote control by the appliance to becontrolled; and

FIGS. 5 and 6 schematically show the system in the real control step ofthe selected appliances.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The remote control system under discussion comprises a remote control 10and a plurality of remote electric or electronic appliances 11 to becontrolled, each provided with a respective electronic apparatus 12intended to support the communication with the remote control 10. Inparticular, each electronic apparatus 12 comprises:

a transmitter 13;

a receiver 14;

a light indicator 15; and

an address 16.

On the other hand, the remote control is provided with:

a transmitter 17 capable of transmitting messages with or withoutrecipient.

The messages without recipient will be processed by all remote devicesin listening status, whereas those with recipient will only be processedby the device having the same address as that coded in the message;

a receiver 18 having a very narrow reception angle. This feature of thereceiver can be obtained, for some types of radiation, by placing beforea normal receiver a device, such as a pipe 19, suitably shaped, and/or alens and/or a collimation hole, capable of sending to the same receiveronly signals coming from sources located into a very narrow cone 20 withrespect to a certain axis X (for example, coinciding with the axis ofpipe 19). Such axis therefore becomes the receiver aiming axis, whereasthe receiving cone is also the remote control's action cone; and

at least one key, not shown.

The communication between remote control and remote appliance takesplace by air through known methods, such as infrared beams orradiofrequency. It should be noted that the communications betweenremote control and remote appliances and vice versa must not necessarilyoccur in the same way. For example, the communication between remoteappliances and remote control can be of the infrared type while thecommunication between remote control and remote appliances can be byradiofrequency. The important point is that receiver 18 of the remotecontrol must have a very narrow reception angle.

By the remote control and the remote appliances described above, theremote control of such appliances occurs according to the followingsequence of actions.

The user aims the remote control towards the selected appliance, andpresses a key so that the remote control transmits a message 21 of“general call” requesting all appliances in listening status and withinthe remote control range of action to transmit their address 16 (FIG.1).

All remote appliances that have received the message, and among thesecertainly that aimed at by the remote control, send a message 22containing their address (FIG. 2).

Thanks to the narrow reception angle a of its receiver, the remotecontrol only receives the message coming from the appliance aimed at byit. By decoding the message, the remote control acquires address 16 ofthe appliances selected by the user. From that moment on, all messagessent by the remote control will be of the type with recipient, so thatup to the end of the process, that is, until the remote appliance hasactuated the command, its communications will only take place with theelectronic apparatus of the appliance identified in this step.

At this point, the remote control transmits an identification requestmessage 23 whose recipient is the appliance whose address has beenreceived and decoded by the remote control during the previous step. Inthe practice, for example, message 23 contains the request of activationof the light indicator 15 installed on the selected appliance (FIG. 3).

Receivers 14 of the remote appliances receive message 23 by the turn oncommand for the light indicator is only actuated by the aimed appliance,since it is the only one with the address equal to that contained in themessage. The indicator visually informs the user of the proper aiming ofthe remote control (FIG. 4).

At that point the user, certain of the proper selection of theappliance, can use a key, a wheel, a joystick or other device to requestthe remote control to send the real actuation command. The remotecontrol then sends an actuation message 24 with the appliance having thepreviously identified address as recipient (FIG. 5).

Also in this case, the actuation command 24 is certainly received bymultiple appliances but is only actuated by that aimed at, since it isthe only one with the address 16 equal to that contained in the message.Finally, as the command is actuated, the remote control turns the lightindicator off (FIG. 6). It should be noted that the intermediateidentification request step described above is not strictly necessaryfor the system operation, but it prevents the situations in which, ifthe remote control has not been perfectly aimed at the appliance to becontrolled and therefore no connection has been established with it, theuser uselessly keeps pressing the remote control key. Moreover, itallows accepting aiming inaccuracies during the transmission of theactuation command 24, since if the light indicator 15 is on, theappliance has been linked.

A variant of the remote control method described above will now bedescribed, considering the particular and highly unlikely situation inwhich more remote appliances are within the remote control receptioncone 20. This situation could in any case be avoided by the installer,by suitably arranging the appliances at a certain distance from eachother, or by the user, moving closer or away so as to not have aplurality of objects within the reception cone.

In any case, a simple procedure will now be proposed, that allows theremote control to identify one by one all appliances located within itsreception cone.

The user aims the remote control to a zone wherein there are otherappliances besides the selected one, and requests the remote control totransmit the message 21 of “general call” commanding all appliances inthe listening status and within the remote control range of action totransmit their address.

All remote appliances that have received the message, and among these,also those in the remote control cone of action, send a message 22containing their address (FIG. 2).

The remote control receives at least one address ADD1, stores it andsend an identification request message 23. The appliance having theaddress ADD1 will reply to such message by turning its light indicatoron and disabling the transmission of its address up to the next “generalcall” message, while the other appliances yet to be identified willcontinue to transmit their address.

At this point, the remote control receives another address ADD2,certainly different from the one previously stored, since the appliancealready identified cannot transmit its address anymore. The remotecontrol stores the second address and after a fixed time interval, forexample in the order of one second, transmits a second identificationrequest message 23 with address ADD2. Upon the reception of thismessage, the light indicator of the appliances having an addressdifferent from ADD2, in this case that with address ADD1, will turn off,since such appliances do not acknowledge themselves as recipients of thesecond message 23; the light indicator of the appliance having addressADD2 is turned on; the appliance having address ADD2 will disable thetransmission of its address up to the next “general call” message; anyother appliances yet to be identified will continue to transmit theiraddress.

The last step of the procedure is repeated until the remote control hasstored all sources located within its reception cone.

At that point, the remote control scans one by one the stored addresses,and sends identification request messages at suitable time intervalsfrom one another. During this procedure, the user will see all lightindicators of the appliances located within the remote control range ofaction turn on one by one.

Actually, the user must not necessarily wait for all appliances to replyto the call, but he can send the actuation command 24 when he sees thelight indicator of the appliance he wants to control turned on.

It should also be noted that the scanning of the identified appliancesmust not necessarily be performed according to a timed sequence, but canbe forced by the user if does not see the light indicator of theappliance he wants to control turn on, and can then request the remotecontrol to go on to the next address present in the memory.

The address of the appliances is unique for each device and preset atthe factory. However, this address is not necessarily used during all ofthe protocol steps. To shorten the messages (to prevent collisions,reduce the lengths of the messages and the energy absorbed by the remotedevices) every remote device, upon a new “general call” message, couldrandomly generate a short address (for example, at 10 bits). The fullprotocol would initially be based on this address. When the remotecontrol sends the identification request command, besides turning thelight indicator on, the remote device also transmits its unique addressfully. The remote control then uses this address to transmit theactuation command. Of course, there exists a probability (inverselyproportional to the address fields size) that two or more deviceslocated within the remote control cone of action take the same address.In this case, when the identification request command is sent, two ormore devices will turn their light indicator on. If the user noticesthis, he can abort the communication procedure and start a new one.However, since this probability is very little (such as less than oneout of one thousand), such contraindication may be acceptable.

From what said it is clear that, unlike the systems currently used,wherein the user must inform the remote control of the appliance heintends to control by pressing the corresponding keys or typing a codeby an alphanumerical keypad provided on the remote control, in thesystem proposed herein the same remote appliances provide the remotecontrol with the mode—in this case their address—for establishing acorrect bi-univocal communication.

The only restraint to obtain this remote control mode relates to thereception angle of the remote control receiver, which must besufficiently narrow so as to avoid as much as possible to repeat theprocedure to be used in case more appliances are within the remotecontrol cone of action.

It should be noted that an appliance can have a single receiver andmultiple transmission devices located in different points of the sameappliance: for example, an air conditioner may have the power adjustmentcommands address transmitter on the right and the air flow directioncommands address transmitter on the left. By aiming to the left or tothe right the user can therefore decide whether to adjust the air flowdirection or the power.

Besides their address, the remote appliances can also transmit a codingof the type of actions they can perform (for example, switching betweenon and off, adjustment, switching between different modes, etc.) and/ora coding of their status (for example, the luminosity level of a lamp,speed of a fan, etc.). The same remote control could therefore be aimedin a sequence towards more appliances to store the addresses and theassociated statuses. Such information will form the status of theenvironment or setting, or scenario. By providing a pushbutton panelcapable of communicating with both the remote control and the remoteappliances, it would be possible to associate all information relatingto a scenario stored by the procedure described above, to a key of saidpanel. By acting on such key, the panel could therefore control one byone all appliances relating to the same scenario, obtaining the effectof recreating it. Such feature is not in se innovative, but theprogramming mechanism is. In fact, it provides for the following steps:

a) Using the remote control on the single appliances to create ascenario;

b) Acquiring from the appliances and by the remote control theinformation relating to their operating status; the set of such statuseswill form the scenario;

c) Selecting a key of the panel to which such scenario is to beassociated; and

d) Sending the scenario-related information to the panel.

Finally, it should be noted that the remote control system proposedherein can be used in various applications, besides the traditionalcontrol of household appliances and electric systems. In fact, thecontrol method and the base structure of the system components beingunderstood, it is possible to easily add countless functions, thanks tosimple hardware and/or software changes to be made to the remote controland/or to the remote appliances. For example, the remote control can beused to open/close doors by a password, as identification means (accesscontrol, cash dispenser, electronic signature, calculator password,library card, access to restricted access areas, etc.), to enable theuse of a device in a fixed time interval, etc. Finally, the remotecontrol can also know biometric data to ensure that its holder is alsothe owner, and therefore also serve as personal identification means.

1. In a remote control system for electric and electronic appliances bya remote control (10), wherein each of said appliances (12) comprises atransmitter (13) intended to transmit a message by air to the remotecontrol (10); a receiver (14) intended to receive and decode a messagesent by air by the remote control; and an identification address (16) tobe transmitted by the appliance transmitter, and wherein the remotecontrol comprises a transmitter (17) intended to transmit a message byair to each of said appliances; a receiver (18) intended to receive anddecode the message sent by air by the transmitter of each of saidappliances; and at least one key to allow to an user to send anactuation command to a selected appliance, the remote control receiver(18) being characterized in that it is provided with a means (19)limiting a narrow angle of reception in order to allow the receptiononly of the message coming from the appliance transmitter on which saidaiming means (19) is orientated.
 2. Remote control system according toclaim 1, wherein said aiming means (19) of the remote control receiverconstitutes the vertex of a virtual conical channel, the base of whichis turned towards the aimed appliance for receiving the message comingfrom said appliance only.
 3. Remote control system according to claim 1,wherein said aiming means (19) of the remote control receiver is formedby a suitably shaped tube.
 4. Remote control system according to claim1, wherein said aiming means (19) of the remote control receiver is alens.
 5. Remote control system according to claim 1, wherein said aimingmeans (19) of the remote control receiver is formed by a collimationhole.
 6. Remote control system according to claim 1, wherein thecommunication between said appliances and remote control is by infraredrays.
 7. Remote control system according to claim 1, wherein thecommunication between said appliances and remote control is by infraredrays, whereas the communication between remote control and saidappliances is by radiofrequency.
 8. Remote control system according toclaim 1, wherein at least one among appliances to be controlled and theremote control comprises a visual indication to display the connectionbetween an appliance and remote control.
 9. A communication method amongelectric and electronic appliances with a remote control in a remotecontrol system according to claim 1, comprising the steps of: I.transmission of an identification message by each appliance; II. aimingof the aiming means of the remote control receiver toward a desiredappliance; III. reception and decoding by the remote control of theidentification message coming from the aimed appliance only; IV.transmission by the remote control of a message intended only for theappliance aimed and recognized at the previous step, and containing anactuation command for said appliance.
 10. Communication method accordingto claim 9, wherein the transmission of the identification message bythe appliance occurs following an identification request transmitted bythe remote control and received by all the appliances, comprising theone to be controlled, said identification request transmission beingcaused by a pressure of a key on the remote control by the user. 11.Communication method according to claim 9, wherein the following stepsare provided between steps III and IV: a. transmission by the remotecontrol of a message intended only for the aimed appliance to becontrolled and containing a request of activation of a confirmationmessage of connection between the aimed appliance and remote control; b.in case of connection, activation of a signal by the aimed appliance.12. Communication method according to claim 9, wherein theidentification message sent by the aimed appliance to be controlled alsocontains an identification code of the type of action that saidappliance is capable of actuating and a coding of its status.